Cusco et Matchu Pitchu

Ok... I was talking about our arrival in Cusco hehe. It was not that easy Alex got sick, monica too and even got a new nickname...no I won't say what it was but she was often running with white paper roll. Personnaly I was not at my best either but we had good reasons. Our night bus, although comfortable, had no heat and we were crossing the Andes at night so you can imagine the cold, we had smoke coming out of our mouth in the bus! By 3:30am it broke down at 4300m of altitude (we were coming from Lima at 160m) so added to the cold we were suffering of altitude and breathing was something that needed a lot of effort. Finally at 4am the bus crew could finally fix everything and we were back on the road, arriving as i said in Cusco at around 11h30 in the morning but completly dead! Bref, we relaxed a bit this day in our Arco Iris hospedaje. Unfortunatly a peruvian girl middle-school had elected our hostal as their stop over for a school trip! Alex and Monica had hard time resting with 20 girls aged around 15 and screaming for a yes or no! However on Monday afternoon, we started our visit of the city and its surroundings. We went on a nice walk taking at first a bus driving 15 min out of town to some Inca Ruins. From there we walk all the way back to Cusco. On our way, we had a few ruins to visit which was our first introduction to inca civilization! Something that we all realized was how the landscape surrounded by high mountains, little country houses, and the fields, gave us the impression of being lost in the countryside whereas Cusco was at 2 km walking distance. Houses in this region are all made out of red mud bricks that each family is making to build their home. The red rounded tiles is adding even more charm to these nice traditional building and colonial influenced architecture. On Tuesday, our program consisted in going for a day trip to the Sacred Valley, which was one of the most populated Inca region. Unfortunatly, Monica and Alex could not come since they were still feeling sick and prefered to rest to be in better shape for the important upcoming days of the Inca Trail to matchu pitchu. Sao Mai and I therefore, went to visit a few more important ruins around Cusco region. We went to Pisaq, a very nice town in a wonderfull valley, were some important forteress and terraces were build by Incas. We passed by a small market which of course made us realize once more, how nice the market in Otovalo in Ecuador was! In the late afternoon we arrived in Ollataytambo, another toursitic town famous for its impressive ruins but also for being the last train stop before Aguas Calientes, the Matchu Pitchu train station. (By the way for the little story: This train was a public train until Fujiyama a japanese that was an important peruvian president privatized it. Since then, the services it gave became step by step horrible. Nowdays, Peru-rail offer only one line from Cusco to Matchu Pitchu, exploiting its monopoly asking for skyhigh prices to tourists and having suppressed almost all locals train not bringing enough money. It is almost the only way to get to Matchu Pitchu!). Once back at the hostal we prepared ourselves, Monica and Alex feeling better we were ready for the 4 day trek to Matchu Pitchu. The program the agency had proposed us consisted of: The 1st day going by bus uphill to pass a col at 4500m, and go down by bike to Santa Maria 1500m. We had great bikes with front suspension and good tire however they were quite old and not perfectly maintained (many flat tire, some little accident for Sao Mai whose bike had no back break and excessively reactive front disk breaks!). The night was "enjoyed" in a Gas station hotel. Down here the climate was radically different, hot a bit humid and with a lot of mosquitos and strong singing jungle cicadas. The second day, we walked on the side of the Urubamba river to reach another very small village Santa Teresa. To get there, we passed through many ruins...but not inca! In fact, in 1998 Peru was ferocely affected by the famous "el niño" phenomen which led to incredible water flod. The Urubamba river became a huge torrent erasing from the map many small village and the other train railway. None of this infrastrusture has been rebuild since and we can still see the old villages completly abandonned and some huge broken part of the railway randomly spread on either side of the river. Beside, this things that can seem quite disastrous the landscape offer great views with great varieties. We past in front of coca plantation, walked through mandarines and banana fields, had a break in a small villager house offering us all kind of fresh fruit juices, and walk on the stairs built by the Inka who were using this same "camino" to travel to Matchu Pitchu hundreds years ago!Later in the afternoon, after crossing the river in a cable car we could enjoy a very relaxing bath in a immense hotspring. The third day, was dedicated to walk to Aguas Calientes or also called the Matchu Pitchu city. However, the guide proposed us an alternative to this original program and we took a little bus to go faster, reach Aguas Calientes at noon, so that in the afternoon we could climb a mountain from which we could have observed a first time the Matchu Pitchu ruins. the way to the city was really lots of fun. We walked on this railway, used once a day (it is the remaining of the railway previoulsy talked about that was destroyed by the El niño) for workers and small local communities. We finally, arrived in Aguas Calientes after a nice enoyed walk, had a bad lunch and finally did not go to climb the mountain since the weather was bad. It was no big deal, we took this opportunity to rest and walk around this small city full of hotel, making us think of a summer 70's architecture french ski resort, enclaved in between huge cliffs and moutains. We went to bed early and well prepared to discover the famous new wonder of the world. At 4:00 the alarm rang and we walk up with great energy and motivation! At 4:30 everyone was ready and we started our walk to the mountain. Our guide had apparently this same motivation and excited energy which led to reaching the entrance 800m uphill after only an hour! We were the first one!! however we had to wait for the entrance to open its gate. When it opened, the excitement was at its maximum even though we were still out of breath from our rapid stairs climbing! We entered, with an already great croud of 5 or 6 bus that had made it just after us and run to the Waynupitchu. Indeed, this other name is the moutain which is as famous as the ruins that stands on the bottom part of the site and from the top of which the view is incredible. The only inconvinient is that it is limited to 400 people a day. Therefore, ALex Sao Mai, Monica, Dany (a friend from the group) and I ran to the waynupitchu gate. Bad surprise, it was opening only an hour later. We ran back to catch up our guided tour and enjoyed the ruins and its explanation like explorators discovering the treasure of their life research! Finally, after the tour only Sao Mai, Dany and I found the energy the climb the 400m higher waynupitchu moutain. It was well worth the extra effort and we even took an incredibly relaxing nape on a terrace on top of this hill overlooking the MatchuPitchu site (see first picture). We than came down. But we did it the local way. All those buses I was talking about our dropping thousands of tourist in front of the gate, not only did we do it climbing up the stairs but running it down faster than the buses! Indeed, many kids wearing a traditional costume, earn they pocket money on week-ends running down the hill waving in each turn to the tourist going down the hill by bus. They are running incredibly fast and it was lot of fun to try to follow him and wave at those lazy tourists! hehe! We finally took this stupid train costing 40$ for an hour to go back to Ollataytambo and from there come back to Cusco. We were all really happy of our trip and did it for soo cheap that we were even more happy (140$ everything included ,food, guide, entrance fees, and even the train!).

Today I stood alone in Cusco, yeah, the other ones went to Puno. I prefered to have another day in this nice cusco colonial town...i have to admit a lot of this was to be able to watch the rugby. But i had a great relaxing day and now it is time to get prepared. A bus is waiting for me at 10pm. I'll be arriving in Puno on the Lake titicaca at 5am and meet Alex Monica and Sao mai at the Europa hostal! From there some more exciting adventure is waiting for us! See you soon for more news!!

Peru Mancora!

Finally I can start writing about peru, country in which we've been for now more than a week! I'll go over a bit quick since once again our internet place is closing soon and i 've been doing the saving of all my photos (we've lost soo many that now savings photos on Cds has become a priority!). So yes Peru... we arrived there on the 16th of Sept having our little trouble crossing the boarder as mentioned in the previous message. Once in Mancora our life suddenly became more cool...we relaxed a lot and loved the laid back ambiance of this place. Nothing to do but to lay on the beach, eat, drink, have a swim either in the sea or in our beach front hotel swimming pool (rooms with private bathroom, hotshowers, tv with cable, beachfront and swimming pool for 4$ a night)! We loved it and stood their two days, on the second night we grabbed a night bus. This last one was going to make us travel 1250km in 17hours at 1$ the hour of bus! It was long but cool since we had really good seats/beds, in a private area on the first floor of the bus and the road, following the coast was straight.

Once we arrived in Lima, Richard, a juggler, we had met in the bus, showed us a nicer part of the city a little outcentered, called Barranco. This nice suburb was originaly the place where rich people from Lima came for the week-ends decades ago, and which has been transformed now in a nice part, more relax, of the big increasing city of Lima. We liked this place, hanged around with Richard and his street friends, which led us to meet many very friendly young locals of this area. Apparently famous for its artistic side, our new friends were very cool and free people relying on their daily street show to live and buy just what is necessary (food, alcohol and weed). This night since it was Monica's birthday we went to a fancy restaurant in the new rich part of town "Miraflores". We all greatly appreciated this events allowing us to eat a lot of really good food for once! The party went on and we ended at 2am in a really cool bar where we had a really good quality concert of all Rage Against the Machine classics! Next day, on the morning I could finally watch for the first time a rugby game!! France won against Ireland but it was not an exciting game however I was happy and on the afternoon we visited the old center of Lima. As Richard had told us, it has nothing special but a few nice government colonial buildings so we went back to our prefered places, Miraflores and the seaside of Mancora. The next day, we took once again a night bus! We started our bus trip to Cusco on the 19th at 1h30pm and arrived on the 20th at 11h30am, after 22hours of bus! OUf, we looked for a hotel in Cusco ate something and slept a bit! La suite pour plutard mes cheris car le monsieur de l'internet me dit qu'il va fermer...juste pour les dernieres news, on part demain de Cusco apres y avoir visiter les ruines Incas des environs et biensur apres avoir fait un trek de 4 jours pour visiter le Matchu Pitchu! Tout ca fut exceptionnel (je raconterais plus en details un autre jour). Puno, le lac titicaca et la Bolivie sont au programme des prochains jours!

Jungle Tour and ending of Ecuador!

It has been already a week that the four of us are hanging around in Peru! I had stopped my last message on the end of the Cotopoxi so here is what has followed.

We arrived to meet back Alex and Sao-Mai in Baños a nice little town more in the south. From there we had already booked a tour for two days in the Jungle! Alex and I had already been quite a bit in some jungles but the girls never and we thought it would give us an occasion to compare.
After a great night we went early in the morning to catch our transportation driving us near our jungle lodge. On the way we stopped a few times to observe the great panoramic of this high jungle and all its rivers and cascade of clear waters. In fact this part of the jungle differs from lowland jungle since it is its beginning, where everything starts, (the rivers, the temperatures is still not too hot, we are between 1500 and 900 meters of altitude, it is not yet the same density). The river we were going along by car joins the Amazons 3500 km further Est which leads to the carribean sea! It is quite impressive to know that from this far inland you can join the carribean see on a Canoe! Bref, after a 3 hours ride we finally arrived in a quite lost place with our guide. Once there, we just had the time to put on our big boots, and follow our native indian guide to go deeper into the jungle. With him we discovered and learned a lot on how indigenous communities are still living completly autonomous in the jungle (they can be reach only by canoe or by very small aiplans)! Many ONG programs protect them as well as the governement which help developing /protecting their traditions and way of life). After a 45 min walk in the mud and humid vegetation, we reached a very nice and impressive waterfall where of course we had a revitalizing bath! Once back at our camp lunch was ready. After a small siesta, with our bags on our back,we once again followed our guide going uphill in the jungle toward our lost lodge waiting for us for the night. He taught us many things on the plants, making out from a leave a incredibly solidbracelet! And we were not at the end of our surprise when we arrived at our lodge, the view on the jungle was incredible. Not one sign of civilization, not one noise beside the jungle wildlife, just trees, waterfalls, clouds, and us!! After another great meal prepared by our guide we went on a night tour a bit difficult since we had tried a few very good local beverages!
Next day the programm was to be dense as well! We started by walking down to the base camp, from there we went on a canoe to go 35 min down a river ( it was doing rafting but with a oldwooden canoe taking water from more than 100 holes)! After this we walk again uphill in the jungle till arriving to a "mirrador" ! There again the view was incredible and our knowledge on plants was growing continiously! On the afternoon we tatooed our arm with natural colors and visited a indigenous community. In the evening we went to the thermal bath once back in Baños. Next day we wanted to visit the famous city of Cuenca. We arrived on Sunday evening and everything was closed but the city is really nice. It all made us think of a nice cultural european town. Ecuador really suprised us for its development and very nice cities and tourist attraction. Monday we went to cross the boarder in order to reach Peru! As a war to define the countries real boarder ended only in 1998 it was kind of messy to cross it! Many traffic of all kind take profit of unclear law delimitation and arriving in a place like that at night freak us up!! But beside exchanging 20USD for false peruvians bills nothing else happened!

Ecuador Climbing Cotopaxi and Jungle tour!

Voila Mardi 11 Sept Monica et moi nous separons d'Alex et SaoMai pour repousser nos limites! Nous avions pris la folle decision de nous lancer a l'ascension du deuxieme volcan le plus haut d'Equateur le Cotopaxi culminant a 5800 metres d'altitude! Meanwhile Alex and SaoMai would go on a circuit around another volcanoe the Quilotoa.

So Monica and I arrived at the cotopaxi national park at 11h30 after two hours of bumpy bus! There, in the middle of nowhere we were suppose to meet our guide! After waiting for him for more than an hour he finally showed up, a rustic ecuatorian man obvioulsy from the countryside surrounding the his 5th decades. We tried the material he had brought not being surprised that half of it was not the right size...Well it was not his falt but the agency and we would have to deal with it, because there was no time for making problems if we wanted to climb, according to him. We could still come to a solution which consisted of the second group coming tomorrow to bring the missing material. We thereafter, continued further in the park to reach our campsite for the night. Indeed, we had thought of doing the climbing in three days which included one day of acclimatation sleeping in tents the first night at 3800m. At this altitude the landscape are fabulous, looking alike impressive scenery of a adventure movie! To enjoy it a little more we went on a warm up tour around a lake, nestled on a plateau surrounded by volcanoes one of them being the Cotopaxi! Back to the camp our guide Rafa had prepared our copious diner! We went to sleep in our Quechua tent, sleeping with as many layers of cloth as we had in our sleeping bag and one next to each other! Even like this we were cold but it was funny! Next morning we woke up at 8:00 and enjoyed a huge breakfast prepared by Rafa! Later on we prepared our bags for refuge and the climbing of the volcanoe. We started to walk till the refuge parking while Rafa went to look for the other three crazy climbers and their guide. We all arrived at 2:00pm at the refuge at 4800 after walking 1 hour on the plateau, driving one hour up to the refuge parking space and walking uphill another 40minutes. There we had a good meal and went to try our material (boots, crampons, piolets etcs) on the glacier. By 6pm we were back and ready to sleep. Already at this stage one of our colleage was completly sick because of the altitude and had unfortunatly already abandonned.

After a short sleep disturbed by our friend throwing up all what he could, a strong wind, and a freezing temperature we woke up at around midnight for starting to climb! At this point our sick friend wife was sick as well and we were now only three for two guides plus two other spanish coming with another guide from another agency. We equiped ourselves, ate something, turned on our front light and went out in the night with the strong wind to seek our limits! After a few hours walking all together, we decided to make different groups. Monica would continue with Rafa alone. A German guy and I would go on with Jorge the second guide (looking a lot more like the kind of professional mountain guide I had seen before being more sympatic as well). Unfortunatly it did not go as Jorge and I thought it would, the german young man was being affected a lot more by altitude and was completly dead whereas I, surprising myself, would feel in all my stake!

However, he bravely continued even though at a very slow rythm, which of course was reasonable and better than nothing.

We passed, the spanish who had broken their crampons and were forced to resign. after 7hours of harsh walk in the snow, affronting the wind and the-9C temperature we arrived at 5500m by sunrise! It was for sure the most precious sunrise I had ever seen in my entire life!

At 7:00Am we started to go down a lot more relaxed and taking some nice precious pictures!

Ecuador!!

He oui ca y est ca fait deja un peu plus d'une semaine que je suis en Equateur!
J'ai fais bon vol et nous sommes arrives Alex, Sao Mai et moi le jeudi 6 a 13h30 heure locale! La bas nous avons rencontre Monica (a gauche sur la photo), l'amie de Sao Mai (au centre de la Photo). Nous multiplions le groupe par deux et passons de deux gars a deux gars et deux filles! C'est cool! Nous partons donc de l'aeroport en taxi vers le centre coloniale (la vieille ville de Quito). On est agreablement surpris! C'est une ville qui a l'air beaucoup plus propore et jolie que ce qu'on s'imaginait! Haaa j'avais oublier I have to continue in English for everyone to understand!!
So yes once in Quito we looked for a hotel which we found pretty quick thks again to our new bible: Lonely Planet South America (Sao Mai, fortunatly had it, yeah coz alex and i had only the lonely planet for central america and the rough guide for south america...but the rough guide...we did not like it at all). We entered this old colonial house giving us the impression to enter our great grandmother's house. The well polished wooden floor would crack under our feet while discovering our big room with high ceiling for 6$ dollar each with private bathroom. The friendly owner was representing very well what we were going to realize every following day in Ecuador, friendliness of people! We went on a tour as soon as we had droped off our backpack in our room to discover Quito! The city is divided into two sections the old town, in which we were lodging and that holds all the interesting colonial buildings and the new town made with the buisiness center, banks, tourism agencies and apparently more comfortable for tourists to stay in (what we really did not agree with and stood all the time in the old town). Visiting one of the square of the old town, we faced a demonstration in front of what we learned was the presidential house! Indeed a few minutes later we had the opportunity to see the president of Ecuador Rafael Correa from his balcoony saluting at the people. We did not really understand if the demonstration was to support him or against him... What we heard and ask just got us confused. Some saying it was to reclame more budget for the sport ministry other presenting Rafael Correa like the one to save ecuador!?... At least he seemed really friendly smiled and waved at his people for 10min and went back inside. We were already deeply integrated in our new country! On this same square, some marginalist were doing a show for another social reclamation with the Che Gueverra song and images of him. Sitting down on a banch a little indegenous boy asked me if I wanted my shoes to be polished, just by looking at me he understood that it was not gonna be possible since my shoes are walking boots which don't need to be polished. But he did not mind and just sat down next to me and started to ask me questions. He was maybe 7 or 8 but did not seemed afraid at all by the differences that were separating him from me! I continue on talking with him and felt like I had yet never felt, felling like if I was living in the street. His family joined us and started eating their diner some chips with "salsa de tomate". Her mom was wearing the tipical Indegenous costume while the man was wearing a very used pair of jeans. Just after being a few hours in Quito the four of us had already the impression of having fully steped in South American Culture. We loved it!
Next day we went to look for a car! Yes we had the idea already since a while ago to buy a car once in South America. The girls were fine with it so we went on. The day before we had been in a Spanish school who's director had given us some information on other cheaper hotels in the old town and on some nice tours to do like climbing the Cotopaxi (second higher pick in Ecuador culminating at 5800m!). We therefore went in the other hotel and from there asking to the reception came to meet people that were car sellers! We passed our whole day looking for cars dreaming of the perfect one at the cheapest price! We went back to the hotel after having travelled a lot through the city, we needed to get prepared since one of Sao Mai friend from Vietnam were having a big party! Once we met her friend we went on a Chivas Bus! The concept concist of about 50 people going on a open air decorated bus and go on a circuit in the city making as much noise as possible with loud music and whistles! It was a lot of fun and gave us the opportunity to mix with young rich ecuatorians! The party was continuing in a club looking a lot like the european ones and in which a famous Reggaeton group was making a concert... All this night environement was completly different from the Quito we had seen so far, european looking people, rich, with big cars and going on parties like in Europe execpting the Chivas Bus tour! It was my first night in a club since a long time ago! Nice but really expensive!
Next morning we had plan on going to one of the biggest market in South America (according to the Lonely Planet) the one in Otovalo. North from Quito it took us a bit more than two hours to get there passing throug our first Andes' mountain desert! We arrived in this little village which made me think a lot of San Cristobal de Las Casas in Mexico. Indeed, you find in this town an important mixture of the colonial culture and the indigenous one, you get to see the limit of the spanish influence. The indigenous colorfull culture therefore is seen a lot more and people in traditional costumes forms the majority. As soon as we arrived there we went to the market quickly dropping our bags in hostal on our way. We spent the next 5 hours losing, mixing oursleves into this impressively diverse market! (on the photo I found Alex in between colorfull panchos and all type of covers). We had a meeting point were we would meet frequently when suddenly a mass of people met at the same place! We realised that once again we were going to see the president who on this saturday was making a visit to the market! People seemed crazy and tryed to touch him as if he was a rock star! After buying quite a lot of souvenirs we went on the internet and back to the hotel! At night an important concernt was going to be held since those first weeks of september are Otavalo's Festivals days! There was an excellent "banda" from Colombia bringing a little bit of Carribean ambiance to this quite cold andean town! It was funny to see how people were not into dancing as in South Mexico and Central America! Thanks to some happy drunk locals we started to warm up and did not stop dancing Salsa and merengue till 2 AM! Next day back to Quito our new favorite town!! On this Sunday in Quito we went to a huge car sell all the way south of town! It was amazing to see all those cars and planning of buying one! But later in the evening after thinking reading mails and checking the budget we came back to reality and decided to abandonned the project of buying a car! Monday we started quite early our planning of the week! We went to confirm with agencies we had meet before our expedition to Cotopaxi for Monica and I and a Jungle tour for the four of us!

End of Costa Rica 2...

Ok so I had stopped when we were in Cahuita...This was a real nice little lost carribean town with its very easy going attitude. It reminded us of belize. Very calm all the buildings more or less maintened and a sort of "nobody cares" attitude which is quite suprising. We looked for a hotel and ended up in an old wood carribean house called "backpackers paradise"!!? we really looked for the paradise but with all the goodwill we had to find it it never showed up! We went on a walk and discover a really nice white sand beach with palm trees and dense vegetation just behind! we liked it a lot, it was the first time we appreciated a beach like that since tulum! Next day we went to discover another little town, known to be more touristy but nicer as well! We headed to puerto viejo...however when we arrived we were suprise to see it looked exactly the same as cahuita but in bigger and more touristy but not many bars, not even one main paved street...wired or really cool! it's the "pura vida" attitude that rules here, just enjoy life as it comes! We looked for a hotel a little bit more fun than previous night to stay and relax a few days! which we greatly did spending hours and hours in hamacs, on the white sand wild beaches surrounding the little town! We even rented bikes the national transport of the city and went to discover some other beach near the city. In fact the city beach apparently famous was a huge dirty black sand beach. So we went more south and found a splendid nice beach, with in its center three magnifique "metisse" girls! As costa ricans in general they were really friendly and asked us to take them in picture! we were starving and had rented those bikes to go more south eat in a famous carribean restaurant, so we left our little paradise too nice to be real! The food was amazing but really expensive, we realised we could make a lot of savings cooking our own food with we greatly enjoyed and found back some home specialities PASTAS et à toutes les sauces pendant 3 jours!!
Bref apres ces delicieuses dernieres journees a ce doree la pillule et a faire des chateaux de sables, nous sommes repartis vers San Jose! Le lendemain un avion pour Quito nous attendait a 500$ le billet il fallait pas le rater!
Nous nous sommes choisis une ptite auberge de jeunesse et malgres les propositions incessante des chauffeurs de taxi pour nous y emmener, nous la trouverons nous meme et a pied grace au plan et a la fonction "boussole" de ma montre qui pour une fois m'a reellement servie (Merci papa).
Le lendemain nous retrouverons donc Sao Mai l'amie Suedo-vietnamienne d'Alex à l'aéroport et nous partirons pour Quito!!

End of Costa Rica!!!

So yes...I was telling you about this nice adventure we had in this rainny forest in north part of Costa Rica. We visited this nice volcanic park starting by the little circuit driving you to different volcanic sites. After walking in this jungle alone and on a trail that was barely marked, surrounded by all the wildlife noises (cricket, monkeys, birds), we discovered the first sulfurous smoke of the circuit. We than continued crossing rivers on Tree trunks, steping in the mud, and steping over huge tree roots, encountering various other stop to observe the volcanic activity. After finishing this one we went quite fast onto the second trail which was suppose to lead us to a impressive waterfall. Our Rosé, with our olives and sandwiches were starting to be greatly enjoyed and transfered from our back to our stomac, in front of this marvelous waterfall, when suddenly a strong tropical rain started. We tried our best to keep everything dry but after 10 min we were already defeated by the force of nature. We found ourselves wet but still trying to protect the little dry parts that were left on us, under Alex´s umbrella squished once again each other and trying to eat and drink our Rosé!! It was a very comic situation and the effect of our bottle of chiliean wine added a good ambiance! We did not need to have a swim as were were already more wet than enough and started to feel really cold, we therefore did all our best to go back and reach the bus to go back to Liberia. Once there we had an unfortunatly cold shower, changed ourselves and jumped in the first bus to San Jose de Costa Rica. Arriving late at night we had to wake up at 5 am to catch the first bus heading to Tortuguero the next national park we wanted to visit. After taking 2 buses, walking 15 minutes in the mud, and a 2hours boat ride we finally reached Tortuguero. This little town of 1000 permanent inhabitant is streching on a long stripe separting the carribean see with an impressive "amazone" river. It is famous for its turtles nestling watching and for its tours on the many canals in the jungle similar to the Amazone one. In fact when taking the ride on the boat, we could already have a good idea of what was waiting for us. We were surrounded by huge trees of all kind hiding many birds but the best was this huge crocodile we could see apparently very lukely since not many are found in this particular park! Still on our way to this lost place, we were quite fortunate to meet a local young guy who had a particularly extreme nature style! But he proposed all what agencies are selling to tourists for a lot lot cheaper and with him, who was born in this place, as a guide. We took this opportunity and next day went on an extraordinary excursion in the jungle on a paddling canoe! He drove us into the smallest canals were no one was and without even entering the park therefore saving 10$ each. We could see red frogs, many kinds of birds, caymans (babies and its mum), and finally after a few walk in the ultra dense jungle, we assisted to a huge monkey lunch! In the late afternoon after resting in our hammock and after having greatly appreciated the lunch our friend had prepare , we went again with him as a guide onto a Canopy tour! It was not worth the 35$ but we still had a great moment! Next day we travelled all the way to the south of the cost to Puerto viejo and slept in Cahuita...(i Again have to leave since tonight we are in Ecuador in Otavalo a northen little town and some events are happening so we have to see that!! )

Costa Rica

How did we do in Costa Rica??

well good pretty good...doing Costa Rica such a diverse country either on its cultural as on its natural side was a hard thing to realize! We did something pretty complete even though we would have like to have the time to visit the pacific side.

So as I was saying in my previous message we arrived on the 28th of August in Liberia. From there we planned to go for a less touristy park than many others called "El parque Rincon de la Vieja". This natural site is mostly famous for its volcanic activities and its dense wildlife! Indeed we started the tour early in the morning one of the person with us being attacked by little kind of possum (a mix between a racoon, and a fox)willing to eat this guy sandwich! We than went to observe in the deep cloud forest...I'll tell you the rest later on...my mate needs to eat hehe as you see it on the photo!